You don't want to miss Wretchard today. A dual edged vivisection of why our chattering classes are mental midgets:

"Walid Phares, interviewed by Kathryn Jean Lopez at the NRO describes OIF as a riposte to 9/11, the Syrian riposte to OIF, the Cedar Revolution as the counterstroke to Syria and Nasrallah's counterstroke to the Cedar Revolution. He sees both Iraq and Lebanon as not conflicts of purely local origin but as arenas in a regional war. It's interesting to compare Phare's piece with Tony Blair's speech in Los Angeles, which will probably be read with the same attention as speeches in the 1930s are read now.

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[ Blair: -ed. ] There is a host of analysis written about mistakes made in Iraq or Afghanistan, much of it with hindsight but some of it with justification. But it all misses one vital point. The moment we decided not to change regime but to change the value system, we made both Iraq and Afghanistan into existential battles for Reactionary Islam. We posed a threat not to their activities simply: but to their values, to the roots of their existence.

***

[ Wretchard: -ed. ] Blair's speech is not about war but a Pole Star. All great captains are alike in that they draw not just any blade, but a ringing and shining blade. For only a sword so enchanted can defeat real malice.

"